Planning for the 2009 Bash

[DocStram]

While things are fresh in our minds, let's try to keep track of ideas and suggestions that we have for next year's bash. Like, what would we do differently next year? How could we fine tune things so they run smoother?

Then when next December rolls around, we can look in this thread to see what adjustments we might want to make.

We might even want to post our contest announcements in this thread so we'll have them for reference. Just an idea.

 

[jeff]

FANTASTIC IDEA!!

Next year, I'd like to start in October!

Might be good to reduce the number of contests a bit, and have one or a few really nice contests possibly jointly sponsored by us and a magazine. We did that years ago with a contest. Scott has the details.

 

[maxwell_smart007]

Two observations on my end:

1. Start looking for donations earlier - my canvassing took me right up until Christmas, and it became difficult to find the appropriate people in the office...

2. I don't know how it would work, but two people might be necessary for contacting suppliers to arrange delivery of prizes next year - or, If I do it again, I just won't do the contest in the middle as well!

But we're doing great, I think - and it seems to be running without a hitch. It would be nice to get more people involved in the contests somehow, as there are only 30 or 40 people who are regularly submitting. I've noticed a few people who have already won twice...How you get more people involved is something I haven't figured out yet...

 

[DocStram]

Here's one .... ask bobskio2003 if he would like to be the official statistician for the Trivia Contest.

 

[Scott]

Hi everybody!

Interesting topic.

Right now may not be the best time for me to jump in on this topic. Right in the middle of the Birthday Bash is about the time I wonder why we do this? Why I do this? [:0]

But we do have fun with this. And I do believe it is worthwhile. We build a sense of community with the Bash, and it does give us an opportunity to organize a donation effort.

We may have run too many contests this year. But they do seem to be running pretty well. And we had the commitment of prizes sufficient to stock this many contests, so I think it is a good thing.

On the other hand, participation is pretty weak this year. The sad fact is that, while we have over four thousand members, we probably have no more than a couple of hundred active at any one time. We have lots of people visiting, but not so many participating. In the Ugly Pen contest, I am beginning to wonder if I'll get enough entries to even award all the prizes! As a contest, it may have run it's course. One bright spot has been the Penmaker's Challenge. Still not a lot of entries, but they have been pretty good, and competitive, entries!

If we were to pare down the contests, which do you think should survive?

We could go more high-profile, teaming up with either a magazine or another large group, such as the AAW, and do fewer, better contests with bigger better prizes. So I guess another question is do we make this a big affair to attract more new members, or do we keep it small and fun to act as a celebration of the members we already have?

Scott.

 

[fiferb]

I like the fact that we have a bunch of small prizes so more people are getting them. We also have some big prizes that will be awarded at the end of the month. If we team up with AAW or a magazine for bigger prizes, that's fine, but I still think we should be giving away a lot of small stuff. More people get more out of it in my opinion.

I've been watching the new member list at the bottom of the home page. We've grown nearly 200 members since the beginning of the month. I haven't seen many of these people participate in contests but I'll wager next year they'll be in the midst of it.

 

[maxwell_smart007]

I think that next year, there has to be a new system for distributing the prizes - IF there's this many contests next year that is...

I don't think people are checking to see if they've won, so I've had to contact about 80 percent of the winners to say 'please send me your address, as you've won a prize"...this slows down the distribution of prizes, and makes for a LOT of emails for me! As I have to wait to see which prize people are requesting, the few that do respond quickly are having to wait a while until the stragglers respond to the email that I've sent...

I decided to try something new and NOT send out any emails, and see if people would eventually respond. This didnt' work, and now I'm trying to catch up again.

So next year, if you don't check to see if you've won, your prize goes to Docstram!

 

[byounghusband]

When/If I do the Pen & Penmakers contest next year, (Most liekly will).... I will not state in the beginning that the worst will get a package from my stash, as a couple people went straight for the guarenteed goodies..... this led to trying to figure out who was actually WORST at guessing.... Not that they tried to match them up at all. Just food for thought.

 

[DocStram]

About the prize distribution .... maybe we need to divide up Andrew's job among 3 or 4 people. I don't know how he's keeping his sanity.

I also think that we had a little too much going on as far as contests. For me, it was hard keeping up with everything.

 

[jeff]

If you guys are willing, I'd like to keep this little group together for a while after the party is over to discuss some fundraising ideas. (I even have a couple!)

I am up to my ears making the final list of donors and matching to email and member names.

I'll be glad when this is over too!

 

[Randy_]

Personally, I don't think IAP should have track down contest winners and beg them for information necessary to mail the prizes. Seems to me these people need to take some responsibility on their own for claiming the prizes. If it were up to me, one of the following three options would be put into place.

Prizes would be forfeited if not properly claimed within a specifically defined time frame. The window might be as large as a week or as small as 48 hours depending upon the wisdom of the Bash Committee.

1. Forfeited prizes would then be awarded to a person selected as an alternate winner for each contest where there was an unclaimed prize.

2. Forfeited prizes would be added to a pot and would all be awarded as a single prize to the winner of a Super Trivia Contest to be held one week after the close of the regularly scheduled contests.

3. Forfeited prizes would be added to the prize list of the Donation Drawing.

P.S. I'm in agreement with those who think that we probably have a few too many contests running. I haven't given it enough thought to be able to offer a recommendation on which contests should be abandoned; but the number of participants in the current contests should certainly be a major determining factor.

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by jeff

If you guys are willing, I'd like to keep this little group together for a while after the party is over to discuss some fundraising ideas.....

Be glad to; but only if we get paid overtime!!

 

[jeff]

I will triple your salaries!

 

[maxwell_smart007]

Originally posted by Randy_


Prizes would be forfeited if not properly claimed within a specifically defined time frame. The window might be as large as a week or as small as 48 hours depending upon the wisdom of the Bash Committee.

If this were the case, Randy, then we would have about sixty prizes in the donation drawing - no joke. I've had to track down at least one person a day for the trivia contest; sometimes two...

If I had done this, then there is no way at all that I could have kept on top of everything...as it is, I have about a dozen sheets with checkmarks and 'x's on it, so that I don't lose track of who gets what prize...

I think the difficult part was that we were giving the trivia winners the choice of prizes. I've had to do a coin toss more than half of the time, and the person who responded in three nanoseconds sometimes had to wait up to a week to get their prize decided. Next year, I'd say that the prize should just be awarded, and the choice should be up to the contest manager...or that the first person to respond gets their choice!

And yes - two or twelve prize managers would be a great idea next year, Doc!

 

[Firefyter-emt]

Scott, If you like and I am still around next year (I sure plan on it!) I don't mind running the featured pen contest again. It worked well enough.

You know, I had a winner for the ugly pen contest... It was a sure winner to the most freaking disgusting pen ever made. I wanted to make a cast "booger" pen but try as I could I just did not have enough time to "pick the blank†It was hard because I wanted to personally pick the blank out myself. I thought about having the kids help me, and then I could claim that my whole family had helped me pick out the blank to enter this year. I even had planned to take a photo of them all around the pen and edit in the words “please pick our dad’s pen, we did!†Again, there are only so many hours in the day!
I figured it would be so nasty you would have to pick it as the winner. With a pen that disgusting there was snot a chance, anything could come close to beating it out. How about a door prize for the best idea that I just did not have time to blow it out of my shop in time for the contest to win. ~snif!

By the way, in case I pick this pen for next year, I want to put a verbal trade mark on the
“Thomasville Booger Penâ€

 

[DocStram]

Originally posted by Firefyter-emt

Scott, If you like and I am still around next year (I sure plan on it!) I don't mind running the featured pen contest again. It worked well enough.

You know, I had a winner for the ugly pen contest... It was a sure winner to the most freaking disgusting pen ever made. I wanted to make a cast "booger" pen but try as I could I just did not have enough time to "pick the blank†It was hard because I wanted to personally pick the blank out myself. I thought about having the kids help me, and then I could claim that my whole family had helped me pick out the blank to enter this year. I even had planned to take a photo of them all around the pen and edit in the words “please pick our dad’s pen, we did!†Again, there are only so many hours in the day!
I figured it would be so nasty you would have to pick it as the winner. With a pen that disgusting there was snot a chance, anything could come close to beating it out. How about a door prize for the best idea that I just did not have time to blow it out of my shop in time for the contest to win. ~snif!

By the way, in case I pick this pen for next year, I want to put a verbal trade mark on the
“Thomasville Booger Penâ€

For the time ever in IAP .... I am "speechless". [:0]

 

[maxwell_smart007]

One more suggestion - don't make multiple contests end around the same day - especially when multiple winners are announced for each contest.

I've been inundated with a plethora of emails today, and I think it'll take a few days to work through the mess that is my inbox - so please be patient if I'm a bit slow getting addresses sent out; I'm making a chart with the names and prizes that the winners are to receive, so I can sort through the inbox that way...

So my thinking is that the way the prize-distribution is set up now, I'd limit it to one contest per week, other than the trivia contest, perhaps?

 

[fiferb]

Speechless? I'm kind of sick to my stomache myself.[xx(]

I'll stick around and help Jeff. Especially since you're tripling salaries.

 

[Firefyter-emt]

Bruce, I think that is the point to the contest, No?? Doc, I take that to mean I have a winner!
I should warn you that I debated a "cricket pen" one day when picking up food for my kids lizard one day, but I thought it would be hard keeping enough of the cricket to make out what they once were. Oh, and that whole moral thing about casting live crickets...[}]

When you say "one contest a week" what about the one I ran, it really needs to run all month long. There are way too many pens to do it all in one week

 

[melogic]

I agree with a time period for the winners to get in touch with the prize coordinator(s), what ever this time is. I also feel that maybe each contest coordinator send an e-mail to each contest winner in their respective contest to let them know they were a winner and to send their mailing information to the prize coordinator so their prize can be sent to them. That's it!
I feel at this point the IAP obligations are done. The winners need to be a little more responsible in the collection of their prizes and getting the proper information to the respective people.

All said and done, I had a blast with this birthday bash and I am looking forward to next years bash. I am also looking forward to having some time to relax after this bash.

Thanks to Jeff, Scott and everyone else that put a lot of time into making this bash a success. WE DID IT!!!!! []

 

[fiferb]

Here's one thing I think we did right. I think the pre-planning went well. I think having the questions done at least 2 weeks prior to the trivia contest was great and made it very easy to post on a daily basis.

 

[Scott]

I am a bit numb, so 'scuse me if I use small words and simple sentences! [8D]

Every year I wonder why I do the Birthday Bash, but every year I do it again! It is fun, and I believe it is fun for those who participate as well.

We try different things, and as time goes on, we keep what works. Which contests worked, and which ones didn't?

As far as notifying winners and getting their addresses, I have a solution. The only contest we ran that was not "entry by E-Mail" was the Ugly Pen Contest. Well, the "contestants" in the Article and Signature contests were nominated by others. But my idea is that entries by E-Mail should include the individual's address for sending prizes, and the entry is invalid if it doesn't include this. This way we don't have to chase down their address later. I'm sure we can find some way to design all our contests so that the entries include an address.

As for Andrew taking on too much - yes he did! And did a bang-up job with it all! I applaud you, Andrew! Is there anything I can do to help finish this up for you?

Here are some questions:

If we did too many contests, which ones should be keep, and which ones should we get rid of?

Should we make the Bash more formal, a couple of large contests sponsored by companies, or should we make it less formal, informal contests with prizes donated by individual members.

We can design games or contests that members can work through for the fun of it, but award no prize other than a printable certificate of completion. Would this be of interest?

We can do away with the Birthday Bash, and just run twice-yearly fund raisers, kind of like public television. What do you think about this?

Do you think enough members really enjoy the Bash? Or do you think it is just a few people, and the rest could care less?

[}]

Scott.

 

[DocStram]

In my opinion, doing away with the Bash would be a serious marketing error on our part. The fact of the matter is ... IAP has a lock on the Bash. The Birthday Bash is to IAP is like the Golden Arches is to McDonalds. The annual thing at TPS is Mickey Mouse compared to what we do. If we ever gave the Bash up ... Rooten Tooten would suddenly take it as his but with different titles. I think we should keep the Bash but scale it down a little. It really does a lot for building camaraderie.

However, I also like the idea of a corporate sponsorship thing. Maybe we should keep the Bash as the celebration of the IAP's anniversary, but add a corporate sponsored event in the late Spring. I know things slow down in the summer with people being on vacation. But, if we held a pen competition in the late Spring, right before summer ... and got some magazine or corporation to sponsor it. We could build it on the theme of Pen Artisans. There wouldn't be any silly competitions like the Ugly Pen Contest or the Trivia Contest .... the competitions would be focused on Penmaking as an Art.

Ya know, there is one other thing we may want to think about ... look at how distance learning and online courses have just skyrocketed. Maybe we need to think about moving into that area. Perhaps we have a distance learning course offered on segmented pens or something.

The university where I teach is a private institution. We are always planning for the future .. staying marketable .. and being fast on our feet. IAP needs to think ahead.

I'll be glad to stick around and help.

 

[wudnhed]

I'll stick around and help too. In the meantime, here are my thoughts, $00.02, LOL!

Keep the ugly pen contest but no categories, just an ugly pen and that's it.

Scott - Randy, excellent ideas about either the entrants including an address with answers or a time limit on sending an address when winning a prize.

I think it might be a good idea to have 4 people in charge of prize distribution, one for each week.

Have designated prizes, when you let people try and decide what they want, it's too confusing for the distributer.

Doc, I love your idea of keeping the Bash unto itself and creating another pen competition mid year.

This is all my brain can handle at the moment, otherwise it mght turn into $00.04

 

[maxwell_smart007]

I agree with everything Becca said - especially the designated prizes...that's been BY FAR my biggest headache!!

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by maxwell_smart007

.....I don't think people are checking to see if they've won, so I've had to contact about 80 percent of the winners to say 'please send me your address, as you've won a prize"...this slows down the distribution of prizes, and makes for a LOT of emails for me! As I have to wait to see which prize people are requesting, the few that do respond quickly are having to wait a while until the stragglers respond to the email that I've sent...

I just assumed that folks would be chomping at the bit to know if they were a winner and claim their prizes ASAP. From what Andrew is saying, however, that is not the case. I'm a great believer in personal responsibility and don't believe Andrew or whomever should have to track down winners and remind them to claim their prizes like Mom reminding her kid to wash his hands before dinner. Seems to me there are numerous ways to deal with this problem one of which I will propose here just to get the discussion started.

Every submission to any of the IAP contests is done by email so the ContestMeister of each contest has access to a reasonably reliable way to contact the winners. It would not be very difficult or time consuming for the ContestMeister to send a standardized notice to each winner advising them they have 48 hours(or whatever is deemed reasonable by the Bash Committee) to submit their name and shipping address to the appropriate person. An additional comment to the effect that a new winner will be selected if they do not claim their prize within the designated time frame would also be appropriate.

Admittedly, there might be someone who looses out because they are on a week-long vacation, or are in the hospital or have a broken computer or (in the case of some of our members) are serving a jail sentence; but for the overall efficiency of running the contests, that would be just a rare unfortunate side effect. If the time limit for claiming prizes was made very clear at the outset of the contest, I don't think anyone would have anything to seriously complain about. Other ideas..........???

 

[fiferb]

Randy, I concur. It would have taken only a minute or two more to copy and paste a standard reply for the trivia contest winners.

The only contest that may be an exception was the best pen contest. Some of those individuals didn't even know they were in a contest until they'd won. In this instance, the contest meister needed to PM or email directly to inform them they'd won.

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by DocStram

About the prize distribution .... maybe we need to divide up Andrew's job among 3 or 4 people......

Becca suggested something similar in another post. Problem is that there is a learning curve involved with these jobs and the more folks you get involved the greater the chance for screw-ups. Becca's suggestion for a new person each week is a problem for me. Seems like just about the time a person was getting the hang of doing the job, we retire him/her and bring in a newbie who has to reinvent the wheel. I think there needs to be a certain amount of continuity so things don't get confused.

Andrew would be the best one to comment on this; but maybe the way to do it is to have one person to handle "JUST" the Trivia Contest prizes and another person to handle the other contests. If we can relieve him of the chore of tracking down winners, maybe that would be a one person job??

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by maxwell_smart007

.....I think the difficult part was that we were giving the trivia winners the choice of prizes. I've had to do a coin toss more than half of the time, and the person who responded in three nanoseconds sometimes had to wait up to a week to get their prize decided. Next year, I'd say that the prize should just be awarded, and the choice should be up to the contest manager...or that the first person to respond gets their choice.....

Andrew is certainly the expert here since I only was involved with the prize selection for the first two or three days. That being said, I am yet to be convinced that offering a choice of prizes for the Trivia winners is that tough to do. You've got two winners and their prize choices. You flip a coin, if necessary, and move on. How long can it take to flip a coin.....15 seconds??? With Andrew having to deal with a new fiancé, maybe he just doesn't have a coin available to flip?? The idea of giving the choice to the first responder is a good one; but adds the complication of needing to send the winner notifications simultaneously or someone has an unfair advantage.

Perhaps giving folks a choice of prizes is a small thing to some; but why send prizes out to folks who potentially won't want or use them if for only a small additional effort, we can try to match prizes to the preferences of the winners?? Know how everyone always talks about how important customer service is for the vendors they deal with. Well, matching prizes is our answer to customer service. I would be disappointed if we didn't make the effort!!

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by Scott

.....Should we make the Bash more formal, a couple of large contests sponsored by companies, or should we make it less formal, informal contests with prizes donated by individual members.....

I like it just the way it is with the possible exception of eliminating one or two contests.....I'll have to think about which ones they might be?? Adding a big name sponsor or two seems like it would greatly add to the already massive logistics of putting on the Bash. I think it would be best to keep it essentially in-house as it is now!!

 

[maxwell_smart007]

It's not the flipping of the coin, Randy - it's that the coin-flip is impossible unless you have both persons responding almost immediately. By the time I got both individuals to respond, the contest had been over for about three or four days, on average - then if another contest (article contest, etc) ends, there's a whole heck of a lot of prizes to track down.

I liked the ones that had set prizes, as i could then just write the name of the winner next ot the prize, and when they emailed me, I'd contact that supplier. The easiest way to run it would be to have ONE prize per trivia day, and then if you don't like the prize, don't enter that day! I think people are pretty much happy with winning anything, however! But honestly, if we didn't contact the winners this year, we'd have given out VERY few prizes - I've got a folder full of emails to prove it!

IF the contest manager were to only have to contact the suppliers, it would be a one-person job. The way it was this year, I have no idea how I kept my sanity...For it to work smoothly next year, I'd suggest that the contest managers collect the names of the winners and their addresses - and have one person contact the non-IAP suppliers...

Perhaps the winners could then contact the IAP donators themselves to claim their prizes - most who donate are regular contributors, and could easily be told when their prize was to be donated...that would eliminate one more middle-man...

But I definitely can't do this two years in a row!

 

[Scott]

I think that prizes should be assigned to the winner as they are awarded. Allowing choice adds an unnecessary layer of work involved in getting the prize out to the individual. If we are asking ourselves about awarding prizes to somebody who might not use it, and giving a choice would be better, then maybe instead we should adjust the prizes. What I have been thinking is to make the Daily Trivia Contest entirely member supported. Most of the prizes this year were that way anyway - IAP members donating blanks to other IAP members. Why not just make that the way prizes are awarded for the Trivia Contest? Then one box of blanks is pretty much like the next box of blanks - and we all like blanks!

I also think that requiring the people entering the contests to provide their addresses on their entries is a good idea. Then when the winner is chosen, we can report the winner with address directly to the person needing to send the prize, without going through the extra steps of contacting them and dragging the information out of them. If all contests were entry by E-Mail, the addresses would be confidential. The contest coordinator would simply enter the winner information into a form with a database we could set up to keep track of prizes and notify the winners and donors.

Also, knowing the contests and number of prizes ahead of time would make eliciting donations of prizes a little more rational. We could actually contact vendors and ask for a particular number and type of prize, which may actually make it easier for the vendors. When the prize is committed, it would be entered into the database with contact information included. I think Andrew would agree that hitting people up for prizes, and saying "oh, whatever you want to donate" is kind of haphazard.

Next year is five years for the IAP. We need to be thinking of making it a pretty big blow-out! Five years! Wow! So cutting contests just to cut back is probably not the direction we would want to go. Finetuning contests to make them more manageable and more entertaining, and easier to administer, would be a good idea. Jeff doesn't have time to make special stuff on the site at the last minute. But if we plan now, and know what we want, he may have the time to put some stuff together for us. Like a good consistent, automatic method of entering contests. A combination of a web form and E-Mail that gets the information we need in a standard format, and E-Mails it to the contest administrator. It's not that hard, but he can't throw it together at the last minute. And up until now, the Birthday Bash has always been a last-minute affair!

I also want to comment on Al's earlier suggestion about distance learning. The reason the IAP was formed in the first place was for penturning education. I think setting some of this up in the manner of classes on penturning, with lessons and videos, would be a wonderful idea! And I think we have some people who could maybe help us with this! We just need to know that is what we want to do, and move in that direction. So Al, this is a great idea! Thanks!

Please, keep the ideas coming! And please also, don't be shy about telling me I'm full of crap. I have no more special authority here than any of you do. And I certainly don't have a corner on the ideas!

Thanks for reading my rant!

Scott.

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by Scott

.....What I have been thinking is to make the Daily Trivia Contest entirely member supported. Most of the prizes this year were that way anyway - IAP members donating blanks to other IAP members. Why not just make that the way prizes are awarded for the Trivia Contest.....

I counted 13 prizes donated by businesses. The count goes up a bit if you count people like Joe Collozo, MLKWoodworking and a few others as businesses rather than as members; but Scott is essentially correct in saying that a majority of the Trivia prizes came from IAP members this year. I don't recall what is was like in past years.

There may be considerations here that are not obvious to me; but, frankly, I like having some prizes from businesses and the big companies. I think it adds some variety and interest to the contests that would be missing if we limited the donations to just IAP members. In fact, wouldn't it be cool if we could get CSUSA to donate some of their high end pen kits for Trivia prizes.....now that would be something!! Emperor..... Lotus..... Imperial..... Gents..... Statesman..... or even some of the more modestly priced kits??

Speaking of that, I don't recall seeing any donations from PSI?? Did we fail to contact them or did they decline the opportunity to participate??

 

[maxwell_smart007]

I contacted just about everyone...PSI didn't respond beyond - 'we're considering it', after three attempted contacts.

Andrew

 

[wudnhed]

I was also wondering about AZ, he was a big contributor last year.

"In fact, wouldn't it be cool if we could get CSUSA to donate some of their high end pen kits for Trivia prizes.....now that would be something!! Emperor..... Lotus..... Imperial..... Gents..... Statesman..... or even some of the more modestly priced kits??"

I think this is an excellent idea, Randy. It could drum up business for them as the winner may have to get the right bushings and might also order more stuff. I, myself, don't feel confident enough in my work to BUY a $50 - $60 kit but if I won a kit, I would give it a try.

 

[wudnhed]

"What I have been thinking is to make the Daily Trivia Contest entirely member supported. Most of the prizes this year were that way anyway - IAP members donating blanks to other IAP members. Why not just make that the way prizes are awarded for the Trivia Contest? Then one box of blanks is pretty much like the next box of blanks - and we all like blanks!"

Scott, I think your right about this. EVERYONE loves blanks and I think its a good prize for the trivia contest.

 

[DocStram]

I agree with the idea of a box of blanks as the trivia prize. The problem of tracking down trivia winners is one that can be easily solved. The earlier posts gave the solution: eligible entries must include the screen name, real life name, snail mail address, and phone number.

Getting members to donate boxes of blanks for the trivia contest doesn't seem to be a problem.

I'm a BIG fan of the raffle. There's nothing like the excitement of waiting for Ugly Jeff and Sweet Nicole to draw the winners.

Which leads me to think that we should work on increasing the number of prizes for the raffle by having a team of people work on contacting a wider array of companies for donations.